Listening Activity: "St. Louis Blues"
Class Activity: Early in this lesson, you listened to Handy's most famous blues composition, " St. Louis Blues" (1914), performed by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. Listen one more time to that work.
For this class activity, listen to a shorter clip of " St. Louis Blues" sung by Bessie Smith in 1925. Before listening, please read the lyrics noting the subject matter and structure.
St. Louis Blues
I hate to see de ev'nin' sun go down,
Hate to see de ev'nin' sun go down
Cause ma baby, he done lef' dis town.
Feelin' tomorrow lak ah feel today,
Feelin' tomorrow lak ah feel today,
I'll pack my grip, make ma git away.
Saint Louis woman wid her diamon' rings
Pulls dat man 'roun' by her apron strings.
'Twant for powder an' for store-bought hair,
De man ah love would not gone nowhere, nowhere.
I Got de Saint Louis Blues jes as blue as ah can be.
Dat man got a heart lak a rock cast in the sea.
Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me.
W.C. Handy
The background to this composition involves Handy hitting rock bottom. Having reached Chicago to perform with his quartet at the World's Fair in 1892, he found out that the event had been postponed for another year. After making his way to St. Louis and later finding himself out of work, he found himself sleeping under a levee. While doing so, he heard the lament of a downtrodden and drunken woman mumbling to herself, "Dat man got a heart lak a rock cast in the sea/ Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me" (Murry 1989, 140). He kept these words-about this lovesick woman for her lost man-with him for twenty years and later incorporated them into "St. Louis Blues". Of the first performance of this work, Murry, quoting from Handy's autobiography, states:
The tango was in vogue. I tricked the dancers by arranging a tango introduction, breaking abruptly into a low-down blues. My eyes swept the floor anxiously, then suddenly I saw the lightning strike. The dancers seemed electrified. Something within them came suddenly to life. An instinct that wanted so much to live, to fling its arms and to spread joy, took them by their heels. By this I was convinced that my new song was accepted.
(Murry 1989, 139)
Now, follow the musical listening guide on the next page and see how much of the structure you can comprehend. The guide shows the first nineteen measures of the score.